Rediscover Ebay: Save the economy and a lot of money

Even in this bad economy and recession, we all still need and want things. We need kitchen appliances such as pots and pans, coffee makers, toasters and blenders. We need power tools including drills, saws and sanders. We need parts for our cars. We want home entertainment equipment like DVD players, televisions, stereo systems. We need and want things for homes and our lives, and we need them to be cheap.

What we don't need is to pay retail prices. How can we get what we want and need at the lowest prices?

Contents:

1. How to narrow down a search for an item at its lowest price on ebay
2. How can ebay sellers offer their products at such low prices?
3. You can help your country's economy by buying on sites such as ebay.
4. Conclusion 

1. How to narrow down a search for an item at its lowest price on ebay

Buying online is the answer, from websites such as ebay. If you have never bought anything from a seller on ebay, it is time for you to discover ebay. If you have bought from sellers on ebay but you are not currently buying on ebay, it is time you rediscovered ebay.

For instance, let's say you need a steam iron. For those of you who haven't done it, I'm going to walk you through finding steam irons on ebay. You veteran ebayers should follow along too, you may learn something or see something I am doing wrong.

First, go to www.ebay.com.  At the top of the page, you will see a search box. There's another box with a pull down menu for categories -- just leave that alone and it will default to "all categories". In the search box, type "steam iron" (don't type the quotation marks). Now press search. At the time I wrote this article, right now, there are 1821 steam irons, both brand new and used. You are right, you don't want to shop 1821 steam irons. You want to narrow down your search. Let's say you want a brand new steam iron. Type "new" (without quotes) next to steam iron in the search box. I just did it and now I have 1133 steam irons.

Now, lets narrow the search further. Lets say you want a steam iron made by Proctor Silex. Go back to the search box and add the words "Proctor Silex" next to "steam iron new". Now it says "steam iron new Proctor Silex". I just did it and right now I have narrowed the search to 21 new Proctor Silex steam irons.

Look down at the top of the list on the right-hand side. There is a heading that says "price + shipping to" with a zip code. If the zip code shown is not yours, click on the zip code and change it to yours. When you do this, all the shipping charges for all the 21 steam irons will be changed for your zip code.

Also at the top of the list, there is a pull down box that defaults to "Best Match". If you click to pull down the choices, you will see other sorting options. Do this and choose "price + shipping: Lowest First". Clicking on that will cause the list to change to show the lowest price figuring shipping and everything, from lowest to highest. Right now when I did it, I see on top, a Proctor Silex steam iron, the listing will be on here for 1 day, 9 hours and 34 minutes longer. It is an auction style listing and no one has bid. The starting bid is .99 (cents) with a $9.10 shipping charge for my zip code. I can bid on that one and if no one bids against me I will win it and pay $10.09 total, shipping and everything.

Maybe I don't want to bid on an auction style listing. If I look a little further down the list, I see a BuyItNow listing for a Proctor Silex steam iron, non-stick, with vertical steam. After I click on it to read the complete description, see a picture, I decide to click BuyItNow and I just bought a $50 steam iron for the low, low price of $9 plus $8.35 shipping, USPS Priority Mail. I will get it in two days.

2. How can ebay sellers offer their products at such low prices?

Customer Returns: Along with some higher priced, brand new merchandise sold on ebay by retail stores as an additional avenue to create sales, the "new", "New in Box", "NIB" and "Brand New" merchandise listed by the smaller, independent sellers on ebay, the largest percentage of the time, are either new and unused, sometimes opened box items which can include store shelf display models, but in most instances, are customer returns.

You may not be aware of just how large the customer returned merchandise market is. It has been estimated that along with the closeout merchandise and surplus merchandise markets (also which makes up a large portion of ebay sales) the returned merchandise and liquidation industry generates over $100 billion dollars in revenue annually.

The customer return business works like this: Customers buy merchandise in stores like Wal-Mart, to give as gifts, etc. Some of those items are returned, opened or unopened, used or unused, working or defective, to the returns counter. Sometimes if Wal-Mart is sure the box has been unopened and the box is in perfect condition, they will re-stock the item. Items that are damaged or if it is either apparent or suspected that the boxes have been opened, those items will be stacked on pallets and returned to the warehouse. From the warehouse, the pallet load or "lot" will be sold off to merchandise "jobbers" many of whom contract to buy entire truck loads of returned lots, sight unseen. Much of the product is damaged beyond repair and will eventually discarded by the jobber, some of the product the jobber can refurbish, some of the product is brand new in opened but torn boxes, and some of the product is in unopened boxes, with the boxes being in varied conditions. Merchandise jobbers are in the business of liquidating this merchandise either in thrift stores, flea markets, and much of this merchandise is sold on ebay as used, new, new "store display", new "blemished", etc.

People on vacations, in Florida for instance, really like to sip daiquiris all day long on the beach. They can pack their own blender, OR, what usually happens, they just go to Wal-Mart (there's at least one in every town) where they buy a blender they can use while on vacation. They save the box, the foam, the plastic bags and the manuals. When they are ready to go home from their vacation, they wash and dry the blender pitcher, carefully clean any spots off the motor, strategically reposition it back into the box and carefully tape the box back together. They then return it to Wal-Mart with their receipt, and give some story as to why the blender isn't quite right for their lifestyle. Wal-Mart refunds their money, and then puts the box on the pile to go back to the warehouse. The blender may end up on sites such ebay, for a fraction of the MSRP.

The Home Shopping Network (HSN) has as one of their most successful sales tools: the unconditional money back guarantee. If you don't want it after you receive it and/or use it, you may attach the enclosed UPS return shipping label and UPS will return it to the address on the label, which despite popular belief, is not the address of the seller, but to a 3rd party company who stacks the merchandise into pallet lots and either sells the lots to merchandise jobbers or ships the merchandise to auction houses who auction the lots to other merchandise jobbers or to the general public. Much of this merchandise become ebay listings, again at a fraction of the HSN price. HSN sells so much product that they buy at ridiculously low cost anyway, usually from China, that even though they lose millions in customer refunds, the loss is a small percentage compared to their profit.

3. You can help your country's economy by buying on sites such as ebay.

When you buy the things you want and need on sites such as ebay, you are helping thousands of sellers, many of which are otherwise unemployed and need your business.

Ebay sellers are recyclers. They re-use a variety of materials to pack your boxes, they re-use boxes, they wrap merchandise boxes using the insides of paper grocery bags, boxes which would reveal the contents to thieves at the post office.

When you buy on ebay, you are directly and indirectly helping your country's economy in millions of ways; for instance, ebay sellers ship your packages via the Post Office, UPS, FedEx, etc., who hire personnel to work at their terminals, truck drivers to transport the freight, contract with 3rd party trucking companies who hire truck drivers, dispatchers, buy trucks, trailers, tires, fuel, oil and countless other items from companies who hire their own employees... the possibilities are endless, AND, you save money.

4. Conclusion

In this economy we all need to save money on the items we need and want. Buying online is the intelligent thing to do. Online sites such as ebay offer the same products as retailers at a fraction of the price because the sellers are able to obtain merchandise in ways that we, the consumers, cannot. By buying on sites such as ebay, we can save a lot of money, support recycling, help our country's economy by providing income to otherwise unemployed individuals, and by providing many other jobs, especially in the transportation industry and industries that support the transportation industry. Websites such as ebay have tools that make the shopping search process as easy as we choose it to be. Discover or rediscover ebay today and save.